It's been two full days, and while that's not an exorbitant amount of time, it's still more time than the average punctual school-minded teen should be missing. Double that for Ami Mizuno, who has literally never missed a regular day of school in her entire life. (Days missed during testing period due to 'a death in the family' don't count.)
Mama Mizuno is probably freaking out.
But in the middle of Mitakihara district, there is a boy who knows exactly where Ami Mizuno's gone. That boy has given much of himself just to keep her desperately clinging to life, when her body seems to be wholeheartedly rejecting the very idea of life. It's not merely her immune system that's been compromised; Kunzite's poison goes far deeper than flesh and blood. This is a poison of the soul; a poison of the mind--a poison of the magical crystal that literally empowers everything Sailor Mercury is.
That she's still breathing is a testament to not only Takashi's quick thinking and self-sacrifice, but also the sheer stubbornness that is Ami Mizuno's desire to cling to life. Even unconscious, she's determined to change the story, and that means she can't let Kunzite or Zoisite or anyone else kill her.
Two days is also a lot of time to wait at a dying girl's bedside. She hasn't been able to eat; hasn't even been able to drink. Only periodic infusions of pure magic are to thank for the fact that she's not a dessicated husk. Human bodies aren't meant to go this long without basic sustenance.
But all of this isn't without reward. As morning dawns on a Monday, Takashi's fitful efforts are rewarded with a soft noise from the girl; the first she's made other than simple breathing since Kunzite nearly killed her. It's just a little squeak, a shift in the pattern of her breathing. The only clue that Ami Mizuno is rousing towards consciousness.
For someone who's done something which could arguably be described as at least 'accidentally heroic', Takashi Agera doesn't feel very well. A large part of that is due to Kunzite's poison - a toxic thing, a monsterous thing - and damn well a thing Takashi made sure to try to understand even as his body was trying to purge it. Even for Takashi Agera, someone who has been dancing with darkness since before he was born, the stuff is brutal. And it had infected the girl in front of him pretty deeply - she'd needed to be infused with his own energy multiple times, and each time had the unfortunant but inevitable consequence of infecting her with a different sort of poison - his own energy. But unlike Kunzite's, it could be purged - eventually - by her own energies.
It took Takashi's much more corrupt system to really rid the posion. He can't help but consider that Kunzite's posion would've wounded him directly in a way, too - and that's a terrifying thought. But he's alive, and Ami's alive...
But it's been a heavy cost to both of them... all three of them, he notes, considering the three small cracked studs on the table that make up his Intelligent Device. And he'd been wondering if the girl would ever wake up. Seeing her like this was rough. And she really couldn't be moved - not after the shock the two teleportations had added onto an already weak body. And Takashi had pulled up a chair beside her - he needed the rest too, every time he took some of that poison into him and it warred with his sytem. Only now, finally, does it seem like it's worth it, as she makes a little noise - there's not much there, but it's a truly glorious sound, because it sounds like life.
"Ami-chan?" Takashi asks, his own voice not exactly full of strength and vitality either, yet miles ahead of the blunette's situation.
The little squeak turns to a whimper, and Ami turns over on the couch. Her skin is pale, but colour is, slowly, beginning to return. And most important: she's still breathing.
Pain rules her world, right now. Every ounce of her being wishes to scream at the pain. To cry and curl up in her mother's arms and beg for release. She hasn't been this unhealthy since she got chicken pox at the age of five.
And that didn't hurt this much.
Ami lets out another whimper and grasps for the blanket taht's covering her. She pulls it around her even tighter, and then falls still again.
Takashi leans over a bit, and puts his hand on her skin. Touching his hand to her wrist. "Ami-chan. Don't try to move, really." he says, though he knows that probably the first thing anybody would want to do is find some sort of comfortable position - as much as he tried to put her into one, it was still a best guess.
He can see that there might be someone there, through the groans of pain and the effort to pull the blanket - or she could just be acting on pure instinct, trying to shun the pain. He's tasted it in small doses, but she's feeling the full force of it all.
"Can you hear me, Ami-chan? Just nod if you can." he says, quietly. Still really putting everything he can into being soothing and nonthreatening - which is, admittedly, new for him.
The bluenette can hear him. But just rolling a few degrees took a lot of effort. She's not comfortable. Not in the least. But she's not going to get comfortable any time soon, because that requires a lot more energy than she's got.
For a moment it doesn't seem like she's going to respond to Takashi. Maybe it was just instinct. Maybe it was just her body trying to stave off more of the pain and torment she's going through. Maybe not. The nod is subtle; subtle enough he might miss it if he's not watching carefully. And even if he is, it's still so subtle he might wonder if he only saw it because he wants to see it.
"Well, I hope you can hear me. But I don't mind repeating myself later, if you can't." he says, seeing just the barest hint of a nod. "You got thrashed pretty bad by Kunzite. He tried to poison you. Well... he tried to kill you. He succeeded at posioning you." he says. "If it was something physical I'd have taken you to a hospital, called your mother. But with what's happening they might've killed you trying to treat something they couldn't fix."
There's a bit of silence. "That's why you're in my house, instead. Because this is a corruption of your energies - of your spirit. And I don't know anybody else who could really fix that."
For more than a minute, it seems possible Ami didn't hear him. Maybe he is going to have to repeat himself later. Maybe she's not awake. She doesn't seem to be getting worse. That's good, at least.
But then she makes a sudden hissing noise, as she sucks in air past her teeth. It's subtle and soft, but it's there. What's more, her face scrunches up, very slowly, as she tries to force words through her mouth. They don't come right away, and her body begins to shake just a bit with the effort.
A single tear trickles down from Ami's eyes, across the bridge of her nose, until it falls to the couch beside her. Pain and frustration, embarassment, discomfort, and fear all mingle together in that tear. But as it hits the pillow, she finally seems to stubbornly surpass those barriers to say ... something. It's too quiet to hear, whatever it is she said. And she knows it. So she repeats herself, a little louder, begging for, "water," through parched lips and a dry throat.
He waits with bated breath to see if she responds to what he says. He's almost about to let out a sad sigh when he hears that air rush through her teeth, when she starts showing signs of being alive rather than just hanging on that precipice between life and death.
Takashi is not well, either. This probably is at it's most apparent when she asks for water - while the tear makes his heart ache in ways he hasn't felt since he lost a not-insignificant chunk of it, her request for water spurs him to action. "Sure, I'll be right back, Ami-chan." he says - he remains calm when talking to her, but he tries to rush to get it for her, which results in him stumbling a bit forward too, catching himself on his coffee table.
He shakes his head a bit, shaking off the malaise, stubbornly getting up and going to the kitchen, opening the immaculately organized cabinet, getting a large glass, filling it with water, and returning - this time slowly.
He returns, kneeling down, glass in hand. He's not sure if she'll be able to take it herself - and if not, he stands by ready to hold it to her lips himself, to help her get the drink she clearly wants so desperately. "I'm sorry, Ami-chan. Your body has been just living off my energy since it happened - you're probably starving, too."
She can't really even move to try and take it, but by the time Takashi has returned, she's at least rolled back onto her back as he left her. When he draws near, those blue eyes open just a bit, and focus (sort of) on his face. She moves her hand just a little towards the water, then furrows her brows in pain and displeasure.
With his help, however--if he's very gentle and also lifts her head so she's not dribbling on herself--she manages to get down a tiny sip. Then another. And then she shakes her head very subtly, indicating she can't do anymore.
It's going to be like that for a little while.
Takashi works with her, as patiently as he needs to, to get as much water in her as she's able, gently holding her head and generally treating her as carefully as he can, given the weakness that was imbued in him by his work to rid the poison out of the two of them.
"I'm sorry..." he says. "This was the best I could do." Takashi, as ever, is concerned about the results he can get when it comes to dealing with things like this. "I've never seen anything like that before..." he adds, quietly. He knows he can't really expect to get much back - which might make it the best time to apologize, when later on she might try to tell him off.
"But I'm going to be here with you until you're stable on your own - in case there's something bad still lurking in there, something that might cause a relapse."
Ami lays back down on the pillow. The look she gives him is one of pure torture--it's the same look his familiar gave him when he was suffusing her with dark energy. But the words she says are far different; rather than a scream of pain and torment, instead she mumbles a very soft, "arigato." It's all she can manage before her eyes begin to drift closed. Sleep is sure to claim her again soon, but water is a big help; even just that tiny little bit of it.
For a moment, that look she gives him brings him back - reminds him of what he'd lost, that peice of him that's missing. And for just a moment, all Takashi Agera wants to do is henshin again, become Riventon, and continue scouring the city for one lost fox - one lost fox that carries within it a peice of his soul. But of course, even if he wanted to, Axion is broken, shattered - he couldn't become Riventon, couldn't handle the energy without breaking. And... there's someone else here who needs him, right now, not in the past or elsewhere in Tokyo.
All he can do is lean down. "Rest well, genius-girl. I'll be here when you wake up again." he assures her.
If Ami knew about that other life he lives, she might be terrified of him, right now. But instead, all she knows of is the man who has saved her life, stood up against evil, and shared chess matches with her. Possibly in reverse order of importance. Still, Kunzite's poison is plenty enough to be terrified, and so it is not peacefully that she goes back to sleep but fitfully.
But sleep she does.
When Ami awakens again, it is nearly dark, and hopefully Takashi has attended to his own needs in the intervening time. Food, water, these are things the body requires. Even the magical body. When Ami awakens again, it is not with a whimper or a squeak, but with a slow opening of her eyes, and another grimace of pain. But once more she asks, "Water," at a bit of a croak.
Having Ami in his house has reminded him a few other things, too. For one thing, how little time he actually spends in this huge house - for another, how little time he spends doing anything that might be considered 'normal'. His hobbies all revolving around working in the lab, around experiments, around knocking small magical girls through buildings. None of which he can do here, he can risk with her present.
He had snuck off to attend to some needs - with the three cracked studs on the table, Axion still aware enough to let him know if she roused, he'd made sure his other life was detached from this one - disabling the door to his lab and jumping the long way here, with several rests due to his body still clearing out the after affects of the posion. And he'd picked up a tablet - a normal tablet, not connected to his mainframes at UMBRA. Just something to pass the time.
And it's that tablet he's using to read about ancient history when Ami rouses - her voice pulling him out of his binge and reminding him that he's thirsty too. He puts the tablet down in his chair without hesitation and gets her a glass of water - and himself a soda - walking back to the couch, setting his soda on the table, attending to her needs first. There are several people in this world who'd be shocked by that alone, much less the careful way in which he's treating her. Something about taking care of someone so weak - the way he has in the paste shielde little fate, switched applicances for a scared fox.
"I can hear you a little better now." he says, lifting her up so she can get a drink. "Maybe that means the worst is behind you."
Rather than grace his statement with a reply, Ami instead focuses on the task of drinking. With his help, it's a little easier, but she still spills some of the water down onto the oversized teeshirt he's had her changed into by whatever nurse has cared for her.
Nevertheless, this time Ami manages to actually drink more than a few sips. A mouthful, then another, until a third of the glass is down. Then she shakes it away and lays her head back down.
For a moment, it seems like she might be about to go back to sleep. But that moment passes, quickly, before she begs, "Usagi-chan."
Takashi still somehow manages to feel crappy about the little bit that she ends up getting on her shirt. He was really trying to avoid that - trying to avoid making her feel anymore weak or childish than she already was - and it bugs him. But at least she's drinking more, which makes him feel better - maybe his assumption was right, and she's getting better, finally, rather than just stablized.
Then, she speaks a name - it's not his, but he can forgive that right now, at least. "Usagi-chan? Who?... oh, Tsukino-san, yeah." Takashi says quietly, popping the top of his soda can. "I met her. At the Crown." he says, quietly. "But you are really, really weak right now. I don't think she can help you right now... you probably should just relax." he says, not having a clue in the world about Usagi's unique magical strength.
Ami's face turns pleading, begging. "Usagi-chan," she whispers to him hopefully, again. "In my phone," she can't quite point, and wouldn't know where to if she could. Somewhere, she's sure, he has access to the Virtue phone and her private cell phone ... both of which have Usagi's number programmed in. Although one of them is mislabeled as 'Sailor Moon'. Maybe best if he doesn't look in that phone. "iPhone. Usagi-chan. Please."
Takashi half nods, half shrugs - it's not a fight he's willing to have, not with a soul-poisoned girl, not with someone so desperate to talk. Of course, when the nurse had taken care of her for things Takashi couldn't - or at least, wouldn't - do, she'd found the phones. One that was normal, and a second that he really couldn't puzzle out. He walked over and picked the normal phone off the mantle, and returned to Ami.
"Look, I can tell here where you are, and that you're safe. But you -really- can't be moved right now. You're still barely alive, and... you wouldn't take a sick person out of the ICU, right? Well, right now your soul is sick, your spirit is sick. And there's not many people in Tokyo who can keep you alive. Being with me is your ICu right now. This is /my/ area of expertise. And... I didn't save you from Kunzite so you could hobble out of here early and go die." he adds, a bit stern, but it's a sterness of concern.
But he passes her the iPhone all the same.
It's all Ami can do not to give Takashi a withering glare at the lecture. But it's not his fault he doesn't understand; it's not at all his fault, and Ami really is grateful to him for what he's done. Even if it rankles that she's only in here because she made a stupid mistake.
Ami tries to accept the phone when he offers it, but it slips out of her fingers, and she gives a look of terror. She tries to pick it up again and only succeeds in shaking until it falls off of her chest and onto the floor. Ami squeezes her eyes shut and lets out a little sigh of frustration, then mumbles. "Safe," she mumbles. "Don't worry. More later. Please tell her," she urges.
Takashi nods. And, to his credit, he doesn't get into it with her. "I'm sorry." he says, again. "I'll text her, don't worry." He's really not used to having someone so wounded here. Even at his worst, at the worst for his allies, or Hannah, they've been capable of texting. In a small way, it reminds him how dependant on him she really is. He puts a hand out - but it only hits her shoulder, despite an almost magnetic pull to want to stroke her hair or touch her cheek. "I'll tell her right now."
He pulls his hand away from her and texts Usagi just a little short thing, just enough to not have her panicking too much, he hopes.
TO: Usagi-Chan: Ami-chan is safe. Don't worry. More later. She asked me to tell you. -Agera
The touch to Ami's shoulder is enough to draw a yelp of pain, but she's tired and weak enough that even her yelp is barely audible. As Takashi texts her friend, Ami settles a little, then rolls back over onto her side so she can see him. The effort of rolling over is great, and she begins to pant almost right away. But soon she overcomes it and settles once more.
She watches him. Blue eyes dwell on Takashi as he sends Usagi the text, and then sets her phone aside. A slow blink indicates another coming bout of exhaustion. But she fights it. "How?"
Takashi is paying enough attention to notice it, and jerks his hand back at that yelp. She must really be fighting something awful, to have her skin unable to handle a touch. Once she rolls over, and settles, he's just watching her - trying to see if there's anything he can do - but there's not, really. He's done, after all, an awful lot for her so far. But he still wants to help more.
And then she turns, and she's talking to him... and he decides that, for now, the last thing she needs on her conscience is that Kunzite went to grab someone /else/ and that's what bought them the time. But he's... much like Madoka, unwilling to fully lie to her, either. "I convinced Kunzite his time was better spent elsewhere than finishing you off. I brought you here. And..." he pauses. "I shared my linker core, my energy, with yours. So you weren't fighting off the posion he infected you with alone." That's true, without giving away any... messy secrets. "It was something you couldn't handle alone, so we fought it together." he adds, with a bit of a smirk.
Right now, he can't see it, because she's too exhausted to actually do it, but Ami is rolling her eyes so hard in her mind. The level of romantic ridiculousness in that statement is enough to get past her sheer social anxiety and go straight into inanity.
But since she can't roll her eyes, she just squints at him a little, then lets her eyes drift closed. "Linker core?" she mumbles the words. Curious even at her worst.
"Linker core. It's... it's something that's referenced in the kind of magic I use." he says, grasping for an explanation. "Other people might have different words for it? It's like... the place your magic comes from. Like your heart, but magical, spiritual." he says, really trying to explain a base concept in a way that makes sense to a half-conscious poisoned girl with a magical style he's entirely unsure of.
"You can just think of it as sharing our energy, for now. I'm sure once you're better you'll want me to break it down academically, and I will. Really. But for right now, all you need to really know is, you were posioned, I shared some of my strength with you, and we're both still fighting off the after effects. Likely yours are worse than mine becuase you were the initial target and it had more time to work at full strength. It wasn't meant to incapacitate, though. It was really meant to kill you."
"Still trying," Ami mumbles quietly as she huddles under the blanket. "Still hurts," she tells him. He likely knows all of this. He can see it in her expressions, and in the way she's still so very pale. "Getting better, but ..." she trails off, then gives a tiny shake of her head. "Water," she begs him again, then forces herself onto her back. "Then more sleep."
Takashi nods, reaching over to grab the water. "It's still trying to kill you, but you're still not letting it. I really think it'd have succeeded, maybe before I got there, if you weren't fighting it." He doesn't mean this to be poetic - it's easy to tell that that attack was dangerous in the extreme. "It'll hurt for a while. But you're through the hardest part. Just keep fighting, and I'll be here to help you swing that sword when your arm gets too tired." It's a simple, silly, soft analogy, but he's exhausted too - this stuff is a special kind of toxic. He tries to do better this time when he gives her the water, working slower than he did the last time, in his excitement that she was getting more than a little bit down.
Once again, Ami manages to drink--slowly--more than just a sip or two. She swallows another third of the glass, then turns her head and lays back down to the pillow. "Thank you," she mumbles again, as she closes her eyes. "Will need broth, next time." Because she doesn't trust him to figure out how to care for someone who's this injured.
Who changed her , anyways?! Oh god, she hopes it wasn't him. But right now she's not sure how it could be anyone but him. And it's these thoughts that chase her into the oblivion of sleep. Did Takashi Agera see her naked!?